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Monday, June 4, 2012

Roller Town (SIFF 2012) - Movie Review

"Roller Town" is a 70's throwback movie set during the time when video game arcades began to take over roller skating rinks as the national past time of teenagers everywhere. The movie stars members of a Canadian comedy troupe called Picnicface and was directed by Andrew Bush.

Leo (Mark Little) is a local roller skating icon that lives in and works at the Roller Town skating rink and dreams of attending a prestigious skating school to fulfill his murdered father's dreams of greatness for his son.

Julia (Kayla Lorette) attends the skating school Leo can't seem to get in to although she is forbidden from going to Roller Town. Her father happens to be the mayor and he would like nothing more than to rid his town of a roller skating culture he sees as vulgar and corrupt.

Of course, the two meet and fall for each other, but run in to trouble when a pair of local criminals introduce a new invention called the video game and things start to fall apart for Roller Town as kids are inexplicably drawn to this new quarter-eating contraption. Leo must find a way to save the skating rink, stop the criminals, and get the girl before...well, before the movie ends.

If you are in to sketch comedy, you will like this movie as it is basically a series of them all strung together to make a full length feature film. The first half of the movie is hilarious with non stop gags and jokes that all seem to work, but as is often the case with this type of film, the comedy begins to wear thin when telling the story moves to the forefront.

The style of the movie is spot on 70's and does a great job at poking fun at the era as well as the movies it is also paying homage to. The film really captures the youthful exuberance of the time (even if it is in a tongue in cheek manner), and overall is very entertaining. As long as you are prepared for a few slow spots and some jokes that just don't work, you will have a good time watching "Roller Town".

There is currently no trailer available on the internet, but you can view the official "Roller Town" website HERE.